Everybody has advice for the Democratic party these days. Armando says do nothing. Edward Copeland says give Bush a clean war funding bill but tie it to revoking the tax cuts for the wealthy. I saw someone else, and sorry I lost the link, suggest that Congress reauthorize the occupation but tie our continued presence to political benchmarks only.
However, via Avedon, I see Steve Soto has the best suggestions I've heard so far, especially for Reid.
But by doing these wasted votes over and over again, Reid is demonstrating his own impotence, thereby undermining whatever other agenda he wanted to pursue over the next four weeks, like the SCHIP battle. On the other hand, note that Nancy Pelosi had the correct answer to John Boehner’s whimpering for a MoveOn vote in that chamber: forget it, we’re going to concentrate on real agenda items, not meaningless dog whistle crap for your base.
If Reid now knows that the Senate GOP will keep playing this game, he needs to cobble together one omnibus alternative that includes Webb-Hagel and whatever mission change proposal from Reed or Salazar or whomever has the whip hand at the time. He needs to try one more time with this as the one and only alternative to the "blank check" rubber stamp. And when McConnell filibusters this, then walk away and let the Senate GOP filibuster until hell freezes over.
When Bush begins to bellow about how it is the Senate's job to send him something he can sign, Reid should immediately correct him and say that it is not the Senate's job to be a rubber stamp, but rather to protect American troops and our national security, a responsibility that Bush has abandoned.
Sounds like a workable plan to me but the main point is the Dems need to do something, anything, besides roll over and play dead. If we want to see stupid dog tricks, we can watch Letterman. We don't want to see them on CSPAN.
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